4:52 PM, February 9, 2013

Detroit Free Press Staff Writer

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Michigan State Police are asking for help solving the murder of a 32-year-old Sterling Heights woman found shot to death in her GMC Yukon on I-75.

Jennifer Ann Scavone was slumped over her steering wheel when a Michigan Department of Transportation courtesy van driver approached at about 3:40 a.m. today to check if she needed help, said Lt. Michael Shaw of the State Police.

“He noticed bullet holes in the vehicle and he ran back to his van and radioed his dispatch,” Shaw said.

Scavone’s white SUV was on the left side of northbound I-75 between Leland and Warren Avenue, about a quarter mile east of the Detroit Medical Center.

Shaw said it’s unclear if the vehicle was moving or stopped when the shots were fired.

“We don’t think she’d been there very long,” Shaw said. “We think it was pretty recent.”

He said an autopsy will determine how many times she was hit. Several shots struck her vehicle and troopers closed the northbound lanes of the freeway for several hours to search for shell casings and other evidence.

Investigators were interviewing Scavone’s fiancé and others to learn where she may have been headed, Shaw said. It’s unclear if anything was taken from the vehicle, he said.

MDOT does have traffic cameras in the area to monitor backups, but they don’t appear to be any help in the investigation.

“They don’t record automatically,” Shaw said.

Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to Crimestoppers at 1-800-SPEAK-UP.